


Comfortable

by zenonaa



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M, post mutual killing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I suppose you want me to brush your hair."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfortable

Byakuya tended not to be an openly affectionate person. Or one at all, really. Nothing about his posture was open, from the way he folded his arms over his chest to how he crossed one leg over the other when seated. Upon hearing Touko’s monologues, he offered select unadulterated words pertaining to his opinion. Never patting her shoulder or soothing her anxiety with a peck on the cheek even after they had entered a relationship of sorts. They had kissed, sure, as well as other stuff, but he still displayed a reluctance to express those sorts of emotions. But she rarely minded. It would be hard to mind when she struggled to open up too.

She almost didn’t hear him enter their apartment, her fingers hesitating over her keyboard as he shut the door behind him. Had she not known his schedule as well as she did, she might have mistook him for a gust of wind passing by an open window.

Touko allowed herself to glance at the corner of her laptop’s screen. On time as usual.

While he removed his outerwear by the door as always, she continued typing. Ends of her mouth twitching into an almost smile when she found a suitable synonym in her mental thesaurus. The rest of the paragraph followed, keys clicking as strings of words flashed through her mind like footsteps down a corridor.

Tuneful. Reassuring. These words and sentences escaped her imagination, swimming around her hunched over form until she found herself submerged in a Victorian castle and not her modestly sized writing room. A writing room that contained stained mugs, and stacks of books and notepads detailing outlines of future projects. A room where if one called out, anyone inside the apartment would hear. Byakuya insisted their stay in this location was temporary. That as soon as he sorted out his old home, they would live there instead.

Perhaps his mansion resembled the castle in her novel, where passages stretched until their ends were fuzzy on one’s sight. Passages that created a labyrinth of stone she would lose herself in until the castle’s tall and rather handsome owner found her squating in front of a dying flame. And his footsteps would echo as he approached, his face reminiscent of those in the portraits all around the castle. The smell of smoke would linger behind her as she moved toward him, chilled hands raised. Her nostrils inhaling his subtle scent of citrus. He would clasp her hands that yearned for a warmth not found in a smouldering flame but from one’s soul, and he would raise her knuckles to his lips.

The paragraph ended. Touko paused to breathe before starting the next paragraph, little finger tapping the enter key, and the world sucked her in once more.

When Byakuya found her, she failed to notice his arrival. Understandable when she wasn’t there but with the castle’s owner on an ebonised button-back settee, the glow of a nearby fireplace hinting at the embroidered hangings in the room. And the two stayed like that, cuddling and reading, until Byakuya leaned over and shut the laptop’s lid.

Then she was alone with Byakuya.

“You stink,” he said, palm flat against the laptop and left cheek incredibly close to her right ear. “You’ve barely left that thing in days.”

Touko rubbed her eyes. Looking at her surroundings was much like peering through a kaleidoscope. “I’m sorry! My... My deadline is coming up and I n-need to finish this draft by the end of-!”

“You need to take a shower,” he finished, hand on the laptop balling into a loose fist. “Don’t argue. I don’t want to stay in here for longer than I have to. This room reeks as much as you. When you’ve washed yourself, you can join me in the living room.”

“But-!”

Byakuya reached around and squeezed her left shoulder. He turned his head slightly and she felt his next words patter against her skin. “The book can wait until tomorrow,  _Touko_.”

Using her first name had the desired effect. Touko blushed and mumbled and scampered into their bathroom, peeling her clothes off before stepping into their shower cubicle. She placed her glasses onto the small shelf attached to the wall then turned the water on. It splattered down, dropping in temperature once she rotated the dial on the wall. Rather than shampoo her hair or scrub away the layer of writing room coating her skin, she stared into space. Byakuya insisted they install a shower because he felt they were more time efficient, so the adjacent bath was reserved for when either wanted to relax or for the occasions when they felt comfortable enough to bathe together.

Touko liked it when they were comfortable enough.

Still, she didn’t mind the shower. The sound of water spraying, constant and hissing, was a refreshing contrast to the harsh plonking of her keyboard.

Realising Byakuya was waiting, Touko hurried through the rest of her routine. Shampoo (one Byakuya chose, as he did with most things in their bathroom, and Touko trusted his choices far more than she did her own). Rinse. Conditioner. Soap. Scrub. Rinse. Ponder her current novel for a bit. Done.

She turned off the water and stepped out, snatching her towel from the rack. Matted hair clung to her naked body and she combed her fingers through as much of it as she could. Maybe Byakuya would brush her hair if she asked.

After a quick detour to obtain clean clothes, she entered the living room with a hairbrush in her hand. Byakuya had taken off his shoes and replaced them with plain slippers. She admired him from the doorway, noting how he kept his countenance stern even when alone. He glanced her way and she interpreted the action as a cue to join him on their couch.

“I suppose you want me to brush your hair,” he remarked when she sat next to him. Touko nodded at the floor. “Give it here then. Kneel in front of me.”

She obliged, falling to her knees and shuffling onto the bit of carpet directly in front of him. Her smile grew when he positioned his legs either side of her body. While he worked through her hair, her expression twitched into one of pain as he tugged and pulled.

“You need to take better care of yourself,” he said, placing the brush to the side when a knot in her hair required his fingers. “Although the effort you put into your writing is admirable, you don’t need to sacrifice good personal hygiene. Otherwise I’ll have to insist you don’t sleep in the same room as me.”

“I know,” she said, wincing when he removed the knot. “Sometimes,” an understatement, “I get carried away but I’ll... I’ll bathe everyday from now on!”

“I’ll make sure of that even if I have to haul you there and hold you in place until you’re sufficiently clean.”

Even after however long, he never failed to make her insides flutter.

He picked up the brush with one hand and her hair with the other. Neither spoke. Touko listened as the brush’s teeth struggled through her hair. With each stroke, the brush met less resistance. After a short time passed, she slouched and hugged her legs to her chest.

Finally finished, he dropped the brush onto the armrest next to him. Awoken from her trance by the brush’s dull thud, she turned around to investigate.

Byakuya pressed his lips into a thin line and relinquished the pressure his legs had been applying. “I’m done... You may sit beside me now.”

She did so, leaving some space between them. When she moved a little closer, he didn’t complain, so she continued wiggling over until they were right next to each other.

He turned toward Touko and pinched a bit of her hair, dragging it away from her body. It swayed back into place when he released it, and he did not speak until her hair came to a rest. “You smell a lot more tolerable now.”

Touko contented herself with the mental image of him sniffing her hair. Then she more than contented herself with the mental image of him penetrating her curtain of hair with his nose, inhaling its scent while his hands captured her shoulders and trailed down her arms.

Before she could content herself too much with mental images, Byakuya revealed a book that had been wedged between him and the armrest.

“... I thought I would read aloud to you,” he explained, opening the book to the first page. “Kirigiri lent this to me and claimed it to be a detective novel of a satisfactory standard. Although it’s not romance, it’s good practice to read outside your genre once in a while.”

How thoughtful. His voice was low so she rested her cheek against his arm and peered down, following the words on the page as he read them aloud. This following of the words soon degenerated into staring fixedly at his thumbnail, the book’s small print blurring behind fatigue.

Byakuya turned the page. “Oi. You’re crushing my arm.”

Touko intended to apologise and scoot away only for him to free his arm. He paused before draping it across her shoulders. A faint blush settled on his features when she nestled against his side. But he allowed his posture to thaw a bit and pulled her closer, reading until she fell asleep.

He swept the hair from her eyes, smiling until he noticed the drool on his shirt.


End file.
